LETTER FROM JIM ROBINSON
PRESIDENT, ASTELLAS AMERICAS OPERATIONS

2016 will be a year of firsts for Astellas Americas. It will be my first year as President, Americas Operations, and as such, I am challenging our team to look at everything we do through a fresh lens. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is nothing new at Astellas — it’s part of everything we do. What’s new is that we’re pulling everything together in our first-ever CSR report card, so that our stakeholders can fully understand the breadth and depth of our commitment to CSR in the Americas.

How we operate is just as important as the medicines we manufacture. It’s important to Astellas. And, ultimately, we’re all part of society. We may work at Astellas, but we have lives outside of work that can make an enormous difference in the world around us.

For this reason, we’re debuting the “Living Smart” platform, which is about making good choices that will ultimately help us to live up to our promise of Changing Tomorrow. It’s about using the talents and innovation of our employees outside of Astellas. We can’t change everything for everyone, but through Living Smart, Astellas and Astellas USA Foundation strive to make a difference in the communities where we live and work.

We can’t change everything for everyone, but through Living Smart, Astellas and Astellas USA Foundation strive to make a difference in the communities where we live and work.

Living Smart also means collaborating with those beyond the business world, including patients and their families, our communities and government and nonprofit agencies. It means stepping out from behind our desks and extending our collective hand into our communities. We want to build bridges, because working together is smarter than trying to change things alone.

It’s the 75,000 hours our employees volunteered giving back to their local communities. It’s the continuous effort to be prepared for disasters by training our employees for emergencies and hosting blood drives at our facilities to collect blood donations that will save hundreds of lives. It’s recognizing that people are living longer and providing them greater access to education in disease prevention.

Living Smart is the belief that together, we can change tomorrow for the better.

In this year of firsts, I encourage each of you to look at Astellas through this fresh lens, and follow our journey as we help others and ourselves to Live Smart.

Other Astellas leaders across the Americas reflect on the company’s social philosophy:

“At Astellas, we do have responsibility towards society. We truly believe that a corporation should be focused on more than making a profit, and by doing that, we reflect and transfer our core values from our most important asset—our people—to the community we serve. The genuine concern for people and the community at Astellas Farma Brazil represents who we are — a company with a personality.”

“I believe that every day is a chance to be better. Every day, we hold the opportunity to become a leader and take the steps necessary to make a difference — both in our own communities and around the world. Every day, we can choose to go beyond ourselves and step out of our comfort zones to help serve others: to act with love, care, generosity and compassion. When we take the time to volunteer, we not only make a positive impact on others, but also develop a refreshed outlook within our own work and lives. And that is what is so wonderful about giving back — in the process of giving, you also receive.”